Lindsey's Adventures in L Space
by poestheblackcat
Summary: "McDonald Boys" verse during "The Sky's Gonna Open." Lindsey's POV of all the libraries he had to go to in order to find the right spell to change his twin back to the right age. Multi-fandom crossover in addition to the main cross of Leverage/Angel.
1. Supernatural

Summary: Takes place during "The Sky's Gonna Open" (To get you up to speed: In that story, Eliot gets de-aged, Lindsey has to find a way to turn him back). Lindsey's POV of all the libraries he had to go to in order to find the right spell to change his twin back to the right age. Multi-fandom crossover in addition to the main cross of Leverage/Angel. Ye have been warned. I mean it. Turn back now if ye haven't the stomach for it.

This story has mostly very short/pretty short chapters (this is a warning, see? WARNING, so no virtual yelling, please). It's only a playful supplemental fic to the main story. By "playful," I mean, "borders on crack" or "is crack" or "have to have had a lot of time to read/watch many different kinds of books/TV/movies in order to understand."

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><p>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<p>

**Lindsey's Adventures in L-Space**

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**Supernatural**

After leaving his age-regressed used-to-be-twelve-_whole_-minutes-older twin (now a laughable _six_ years old) behind in Boston, Lindsey takes another flight out to South Dakota. This is the location of his first magical library on his search for a spell to reverse the one under which his idiot brother has managed to become enchanted.

Because he's on the move so often, Lindsey has very few books of his own, and none of them contains anything about age-regression (or progression, for that matter). So he heads to the home of an acquaintance of his, a crotchety old junk yard owner who also happens to be an expert supernatural hunter.

"Sure," Bobby Singer says with a sarcastic eye roll, "_Mi biblioteca es su biblioteca._ An' I won't even charge ya. Just put the books back where you found 'em. Hate it when people don't put books back where they belong."

"Thanks, Bobby," Lindsey says, hiding a smile at the surliness the old man uses to cover up his goodhearted nature, "I owe ya."

"Yeah, sure," Bobby grumbles, "At least you know how to do yer own research, unlike some other idjit hunters I could name," he mutters under his breath.

Lindsey shakes his head, amused, and starts working.

Five days later, he has nothing. He does, however, have a good-sized list of spells for killing witches (which isn't exactly helpful, seeing how the death of the witch in question is what is making all this so difficult), exorcisms (also not helpful), and more interestingly, uncovers a "List of Ways To Kill The Devil That We Haven't Tried Yet."

Lindsey could probably help the old man and his two "idjit" goons out with that one, but they haven't asked, so he doesn't offer. He might later, if he needs something in return.

But until then, thanks, and good luck.

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><p>Translation. Ha! Spanish for a change:<p>

"_Mi biblioteca es su biblioteca."_ - My library is your library. A take on _"mi casa es tu casa"_ (My house is your house).


	2. The X Files

AN: Apparently, I'm addicted to fanfic because I'm posting this new chapter before I'm done replying to everyone's reviews. I will get to them...sooner or later. But keep them coming! It makes me very happyful every time I get one! Thank you for all your love!

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**The X-Files**

After his unfruitful search in Bobby Singer's personal library on all (no, most…no, _many_) things supernatural, Lindsey turns to the paranormal instead.

"Mulder," he says to the FBI's top paranormal specialist over the phone, using voice-disguising magicware. "Do you have anything on instant aging?"

He can hear the banging of file cabinets and the shuffling of papers in the background before Fox Mulder replies. _"Instant aging? We have the five-day geriatric, the decade-a-day guy, the year-an-hour woman, New Mexico guy who claimed he got abducted by aliens and came back fifty years older, a few cases here and there. What exactly are you investigating, Liam?"_ he asks, addressing Lindsey by the pseudonym he'd adopted when speaking to the agent. What? It's symbolic, alright?

"I have a case of a thirty-one year age-regression," Lindsey replies carefully, not wanting to give out too much information, but not wanting to leave out anything possibly pertinent to the solution either, "I'm looking for ways to progress the subject back to precisely the correct age."

Papers rustle again for several minutes. _"No, sorry, Liam. I don't have any records of an age-progression that exact. Besides, most of these end in the death of the individual involved. Pretty gruesome in some cases, actually. I'm sorry."_

Lindsey sighs. "Right. Well, thank you for your help, Mulder."

"_Hey, Liam,"_ Mulder says before he can hang up, _"Have you learned anything more about my sister?"_

No, actually, Lindsey hasn't. He hasn't worked on Mulder's case for a while, at least not for the last few months. But it wouldn't do to lose this contact. "Nothing new has come up recently," he says, "But I'll keep looking."

"_Thanks. Good luck."_

"Yeah. You, too."

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AN: Mulder refers to Lindsey as "Liam*" because Lindsey has a twisted, perverse sense of irony. In Eliot's words, there's something wrong with his head.

*Angel's name before being turned into a vampire.


	3. The Librarian

**The Librarian**

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"No," the Librarian says absentmindedly, pushing a long thin hand through his mussed brown hair, "no, we don't have anything that will make you _older._ We have the Fountain of Youth, the Holy Grail, a time machine, the Philosopher's Stone, the Portrait of Dorian Gray, but no, nothing that can age a person. May I ask why you would want something like that? Most people either want to live forever or become _younger._"

Lindsey smiles. "You can ask."

Flynn Carsen blinks, then a look of comprehension dawns. "Ah, but you won't tell. I see. I suppose, you wouldn't tell me, simply for the sake of _knowledge_?"

Lindsey tightens his smile and shakes his head.

"Very well then, thou man of secrecy and mystique," the Librarian sighs, and keeps looking through the catalog, which he and the former Librarian, Judson, won't let Lindsey near for the reason that it is much too dangerous for a non-Librarian to set eyes on.

Lindsey shrugs and looks around at the vast archive hidden in a secret annex of the New York Metropolitan Public Library. If any of his brother's cohorts ever make it inside this place (which they probably would if they knew of its existence), they'd be flummoxed as to what exactly to steal. Even Parker, with her love of odd, shiny things, wouldn't be able to decide between the Crystal Skull and the goose that lays golden eggs. No, actually, she'd probably steal the goddess Freyja's flaming golden necklace, the Brísingamen.

"No, nothing," Carsen says, and turns apologetic eyes on the former lawyer. "I apologize for my inability to help in this matter."

"No worries," Lindsey sighs, "I'll just have to keep looking. Thanks for trying."

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AN: _The Librarian_ is a creation of _Leverage_ producer Dean Devlin. Homage, baby!


	4. Harry Potter

**Harry Potter**

Lindsey visits a few more hidden libraries around the world, but comes up with absolutely zilch. Well, a few remedies have seemed promising to begin with, but at second glance, prove to be not at all what he's looking for, for various reasons.

Several weeks after beginning his search, he finds himself across the pond at a wizarding school in England. The vulture-like school librarian, Irma Pince, glares at Lindsey through suspicious narrowed eyes as he peruses the shelves of highly magical books.

_"If you rip, tear, shred, bend, fold, deface, disfigure, smear, smudge, throw, drop, or in any other manner damage, mistreat, or show lack of respect towards this book, the consequences will be as awful as it in within my power to make them,"_ her expression warns, but she doesn't say it because after all, he is an adult, not a student.

All around him, students dressed in black Hogwarts robes bustle and whisper. A few of them cast curious looks at the unfamiliar man, but the attentions of most are concentrated on studying for their final exams.

Besides, Lindsey knows that he blends in enough to not be all that suspicious; he doesn't have to fake "visiting academic," and he has donned wizard's robes over his civvies. He fits in. Any oddities would be attributed to his being American, not a magic-dabbling Muggle.

Sitting down to a heap of books (at least he _found_ some, nay, _a lot_ of books on magical aging), Lindsey's internal monologue goes something like this:

"_Yeah, 'kay, knew that, knew that, mmhm, oh that's new…but irrelevant, hate the sound of quills scratching across parchment, _OW! Hate _biting books, closing hours? But I'm an adult! Here, ten Galleons ought to do it…Who the hell doesn't take bribes?"_

That's Day One. Days Two, Three, Four, and Five pass by in a similar manner (but without the bribing because the look Madam Pince had given him that first night had been incredibly terrifying).

A humungous library full of books, but not one with a decent (in terms of both practicality and morality) spell for re-aging someone. Spells to "gyve a manne yeares" never state the exact number of years they would age the person, or else have some horrible side effect. Lindsey knows from experience that one must know every last detail of a spell's outcomes, unless one wants to end up with a purple tail at the end of a hair-trimming charm. (Don't ask.)

By Day Six, he's finished half a bottle of aspirin and the librarian looks ready to throw him out.

Time to move on.

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><p>AN: Yes, Lindsey tried to bribe the librarian. Really, Lindsey. <em>That<em> librarian?

"If you rip, tear, shred, bend, fold, deface…" - Straight out of the books.


	5. Discworld

AN: Epic fail on the last chapter? See AN at the end for a rather shifty-eyed explanation.

Anyway, Terry Pratchett is awesome. Forget Chuck Shurley being the prophet on SPN. That character should've been named Terry.

Disclaimer: I "stole" L-space from the books. I mean, genius! So I couldn't help it, and it's okay that I used it because I cited it. *nods* If you like the concept, go read Pratchett's books.

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><p><strong>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<strong>

**Discworld**

Everyone knows that large numbers of books in one place create portals into L-space (short for "library-space"). (You didn't know that? They do.) L-space connects every library throughout time, space, and dimension. These portals are the reason many bookstores seem larger on the inside than the outside - one may often pass from one library into another without knowing it.

Doing so may be dangerous; thus, proper techniques to navigate L-space are taught by the Librarians of Time and Space to those they consider worthy of this knowledge. Alternately, this secret may also be sweet-talked out of certain librarians with the proper application of flowers, chocolates, dinner, and _ahem_, passionate debates about obscure Russian literature.

This is the route Lindsey took to learn the Powers of Librarianship. (What? He's dated a couple of librarians in his time.)

This knowledge has saved his life more than once, since large collections of books are available in almost any dimension, and one may simply slip from one library to another (in any world) without being detected (or paying airfare). However, escaping into L-space poses a danger of its own; thesauri, .303 bookworms, dreaded clichés (terrible, fanged animals) and other wild literary creatures roam the space, and the bespectacled remains of many a poor, lost, unsuspecting academic may be found in the jungle of the multiversal library.

Presently, having exhausted his magical researching resources on this version of Earth, Lindsey cautiously goes through the portal in the Hogwarts Library into L-space. He makes his way according to the magically ever-changing map of the territory in his head, and eventually finds himself amongst titles like "Thee Headologie ov thee Greate Turtle A'Tuin" rather than "An Historie ov Magicks and Sorcerie inne Brittanie." He also notes that the gravitational force is slightly different on a flat disc-shaped world balancing on the back of four elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle swimming through space.

When he emerges from between two shelves into the center of the library at the Unseen University, he is greeted quite affably by the Librarian and is offered a banana as refreshment after his trying journey through L-space. Yes, a banana. And some peanuts. The Librarian of this wizard university is not at all your typical librarian, you see.

He's an orangutan. Long story short, it was a magical accident, and all you really need to know is that you must never call him a mon- I mean, primate sort of thing that swings in trees, likes bananas, is sometimes very curious about men in yellow hats, and well, you know, they're those things that Eliot (absotively posilutely) hates.

Shape (like a hairy rubber sack filled with water) and color (red-orange) are not matters of importance in librariandom. It's all about skill. And the Librarian has many of them, one of which is the talent for finding just exactly the book you're looking for (usually handing it to you with one long arm, while hanging upside-down from a shelf).

Unless, of course, it hasn't been written yet, or at least not on the Discworld.

"Ook," the Librarian says, shaking his head and shrugging shaggy orange shoulders. "Ook?" He hands Lindsey a human bodology* book.

Lindsey takes it. "Oh, thanks. Closest thing you could find? You really think this might help? Age-regression isn't an actual disease, though." He opens the book eagerly.

The orangutan reaches over and flips to the "Magickale Phenomenae" section and points a gnarly finger at a chapter title.

"'_Thee Temporale Glande,'"_ reads Lindsey. "Temporal gland? Huh. _'Thee temporale glande is tasqued withe thee dutee ov remembering thee age ov thee bodie. Highe magickale feelds maye influense its abilitie to create chronodine, leeding thee bodie to becomme uncertaine aboot its Truye Aege. Ae Warning: Tampering withe chronodine levels maye disrupte thee spase-tyme continuinuinuum.'"_

He sighs, putting the book down. "I don't think this is it," he says. "It wasn't caused by a _high_ magical field. It was just a spell."

The Librarian nods and shrugs.

"Nothing else?"

"Eek."

"Thanks. I'll be on my way then." He's about to stand when the Librarian grunts and shakes his finger at the object on the table.

"Ook-ook. Ook-ook-_oooook._" The expression on the ugly face is disturbingly familiar. The last time he'd seen _that_ look had been on his brother's.

He sighs and picks up the half-eaten banana.

True, he hasn't been eating all that regularly since he'd last seen Eliot (looking so small, so helpless), but he's sure he doesn't look _peaky, _like the Librarian had just said (ooked, anyway).

Still, he eats the rest of the banana to make the orangutan happy (but only because he doesn't want the Librarian _un_happy, and not because he's so hungry that even Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler's questionable sausages actually sound kind of edible right now). He doesn't make a fuss when the bowl of peanuts is set down in front of him either.

"Y'know," he starts conversationally, as he shells a peanut, "where I come from, they make this stuff called 'peanut butter.'"

The orangutan's tiny eyes widen as far as they can go. "Ook?" His hands stop in the middle of cracking a nut open.

"Yeah," Lindsey nods. "It's not really _butter_, though. It's just peanuts mashed up into a kind of peanut jam. You put it on bread, mostly, but my brother makes these cookies out of the stuff and seriously, I would sell my soul for one of those cookies. Not kidding. They're that delicious."

"Ook. Ook-ook-eek." A slobbering orangutan is not an attractive sight.

"Yeah, me too," Lindsey agrees with the simian's sentiment. "Tell you what. If we get him back to size, I'll get him to bake a batch and I'll bring you some."

"Ook?" the Librarian says with a hopeful look.

"Yeah. I mean it," Lindsey says with a small smile. "You've been really helpful. Thanks."

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><p>AN: Lindsey dated a librarian. Distinctive Eliot line borrowed by Lindsey and geekified!<p>

*human bodology: the study of the human body (bodology is to anatomy as headology is to psychology - similar in definition but completely different in practice…or the other way around…)

The Librarian is my favorite character in the Discworld books, closely followed by Death and Death of Rats.

And that last bit…Umm…I was craving peanut butter cookies when I wrote it. And in case you were wondering, yes, Lindsey keeps his promise to wheedle Eliot into making him peanut butter cookies to bring to the Librarian.

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><p>Collective Review Replies:<p>

Whoa, a lot (okay, not _a lot_) of backlash for the _Harry Potter_ chapter. Reasoning for not including other characters: 1) The timeline is all wrong. This is supposed to be set in 2011, and the HP books took place from 1991-1998, so no Harry, Ron, and Hermione there (and their kids don't start at Hogwarts until 2017). 2) In response to the Snape question, he *spoilers* died in the last book, so same problem as 1). I'm keeping "real-world" stuff (meaning, before this L-space business) within the "real-world" timeline. Other worlds don't have to fit in that time frame. *nods* *shifty eyes* And 3) Lindsey's _undercover_. *nods again* *waves wand*

Sorry to disappoint with that. I'm not as avid a HP fan as I used to be (about five years ago?), so my HP brain wasn't turned on. I just wanted to use that awesome library in my story.


	6. Lord of the Rings

AN: Okay, here goes. Don't kill me. No lynching allowed.

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><p><strong>Lord of the Rings<strong>

Lindsey goes through L-space yet again, this time emerging in one of the worst-kept libraries he has been in so far.

When he explains his errand to the archivist, the wizened old man with the graying beard and slouched, pointy hat leads him wordlessly through the Gondorian archives with a flaming torch. The inner bibliophile in Lindsey screams and scolds at the abuse and danger the books are being exposed to (_fire_ near _books?_ Stacks of_ unorganized _books?), but he keeps quiet, not wanting to alienate the archivist. He is in a foreign universe, after all. He has to accept the local customs of Middle-Earth (still, _fire_ near _books_), or he might not make it out in one piece.

He spends a good day and a half before his stomach forcibly reminds him that it's time for breaklunnerfast (that is, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breakfast again, all at once). He takes ten minutes to choke down moldy cheese and bread and washes the taste of it out of his mouth with some ale, which, to Tolkien's credit, is (luckily for him) pretty darn tasty.

During the course of Days 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 he flips through the pages of exactly 6,234 books and unfurls 4,132 rolls of parchment.

There are spells, ancient, secret spells, but they're all so dangerous, and demand so much in sacrifice that he only writes them down to use as a last resort. Because Eliot has standards. Lindsey may not mind the odd sacrifice now and then (in theory - he hasn't participated in any _real_ sacrifices since quitting his job at that eternally-damned law firm), and Eliot may not be the squeamish type, but he still has a moral code.

Still, Lindsey writes them down. He writes them all down, even the ones that Eliot would never, _ever_ approve of. But he keeps them because well, what Eliot doesn't know can't hurt him.

Day 6, something pretty interesting happens, the kind of thing he could tell the grandkids. Well, if he was a family man, which he isn't.

He meets Gandalf.

Yeah.

That Gandalf.

On Day 6 of Lindsey's stay, Gandalf the Grey arrives at the archives of Gondor, searching for information about the Ring.

Lindsey would never admit it to anyone (read: "Eliot"), but he has a slightly fanboyish reaction when he realizes who has just walked into the room, old and bent, hook in his nose complemented by the crook of his pointed wizard's hat, long beard showing grey in the archivist's torchlight.

The old wizard gives him a probing, Dumbledorian look at his wide-eyed, astonished expression, but keeps his thoughts to himself and silently and efficiently gets to work.

Lindsey idly ponders if it would be weird to ask for his autograph, and mentally slaps himself in the face a moment after.

Dude. Not cool.

Anyway, time to move on.

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><p>AN: Lindsey is a geek. There's no hiding it. And "Dumbledorian" is <em>too<em> an adjective!


	7. The Sky's Gonna Open

AN: Back to the events mentioned in "The Sky's Gonna Open."

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**The Sky's Gonna Open**

He spends a few days in a demon-kept library located in a literary dimension (hey, no need to be racist - demons like a good book as well as anybody), searching, looking.

Then Eliot calls him.

There are tears in his voice, and he's not even drunk or concussed. He's six years old, and he's scared and guilty and feeling all sorts of grown-up emotions, but they're packed into a tiny body and there's no outlet but to _cry_. So he does, and it's not_ Eliot. _Child or adult, Eliot never gave in to his emotions like that (don't get Lindsey wrong - Eliot's a better man than he is [well, _was_]), and Lindsey feels _lost_ without his brother acting and reacting like he's supposed to. He gets a sudden empty feeling inside of him, and all he wants is to be near Eliot.

Like _now. _Right now.

So he hurries back to his own world and is halfway to Boston when he sees the date. July 20. Oh, shit. Oh _shit!_

It's their birthday tomorrow.

Birthdays are _not_ a big deal. They come around every year, after all. It's kind of awkward and embarrassing swapping presents ("Uh, here. Heh. Hope you uh, like it." "Oh, um. Thanks. Here. 'S for you." "Oh, thanks. Uh, yeah.") because it's not like it's Christmas or anything. It's just another day.

But they used to celebrate their birthday. When they were kids, Mama would bake them a cake, and they'd blow out the candles together, in one combined breath. After Mama died, Uncle Randy did his best, and Tina Martin would make them a cake (never as good as Mama's), and Willie and Aimee would sit next to them at the table, cheering them on as they blew out their candles and made their birthday wishes. Those had been good birthdays.

The first year they'd ever been separated, when Eliot joined the army and Lindsey went to college, Lindsey had haunted his dorm room's telephone, waiting for Eliot's call. "Happy birthday," then a reluctant "It's lights out. Gotta go," ten short minutes later.

Birthdays had gradually gotten to be special days only when they had the time to for more than a quick phone call. Even when they did have the time, well, it was just a day to celebrate another year lived, and life was hell anyway, so why bother?

But this year?

Eliot sounded like a kid, and a kid should have _something_ on his birthday. Even back then, when they'd been so poor that the roof leaked every time it drizzled, they had presents. The both of them. Some small toy each, a handful of candy bars, _something._ One year, a good year, they'd gotten matching teddy bears. Sprout and Bean. Bean and Sprout.

Bean had been Eliot's, then their baby sister Abby's when she'd taken a liking to it, but Sprout…whatever happened to Sprout?

He'd packed the stuffed bear away long ago in a box of their old things from their poverty-stricken yet _happy_ childhood. And the box? In a storage depot smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt.

So he makes his way to the warehouse where he'd packed away his past (and Eliot's), and pulls the roll-up door open. Once he walks in, he's hit by a strange wave of nostalgia (he tells himself that it's only the energy from the magical wards he has put up to keep enemies from stealing all the jealously guarded pieces of their pasts). Their mother's wedding dress is packed away in that box over there, and their dad's high school football trophy in that box there, faded old photographs here, and all of Lindsey's report cards and school papers over there. A white dress that Darla had once worn, a necklace that Eve had given him. All squirreled away safely in a place only he knows of.

He makes his way to a box and slices the clear tape away with his knife. The last of the tape snaps as he lifts the lid up, and a cloud of dust puffs up into the air, making his eyes water and irritating his throat. There, snuggled down amidst the faded folds of an old quilt made by their great-grandmother during the Depression, is Sprout, as worn down and raggedy as ever.

A half-smile on his face, he reaches down and picks the bear up. The toy in his hand is smaller than he remembers, and he finds himself giving it a quick one-armed squeeze. Embarrassed, he looks around to check that no one is looking, tucks the bear under his arm, and cautiously makes his way out of the warehouse.

After that, it's easy. He enchants a fly with a spell he's used countless times before for surveillance, adds a little confetti magic, and sends the whole shebang off to Boston.

As he watches his brother, his twin brother who should still be twelve minutes older than him today instead of thirty-one years younger, having the best birthday he's probably ever had, Lindsey wishes that he could've been there, too.

And then he berates himself for wishing such a thing; how could he _want_ Eliot to be a kid when he very obviously hates it and- and well, isn't _himself_ when he's like this? Lindsey should be working on a spell, but all the goddamn spells he's found that _could_ work are too dangerous to manage or need some unforgivable deed to be done to make them work.

He looks at his list. All these rituals, all these counterspells. Not a decent one among them. He holds the notebook in his hand and thinks of his brother, thinks of his voice, sounding so small and scared and _wrong_, and he makes up his mind. He'll do it. He's gonna do it, no matter what Eliot says if (when) he finds out. He's gonna do it.

He can fix this.

He _will_ fix this.

He'll take care of Eliot even if it's the last thing he does (and it will be if he does it right), because they're brothers and that's what they do.

Besides, he's the older one now, which automatically makes him the overprotective one.

Right? Right.

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><p>AN: And that's it. This is what Lindsey was doing while Eliot was adjusting to being a little kid in "The Sky's Gonna Open."<p>

(Yes, I'm aware that this wasn't one of my best stories, but I kind of wanted to try it out. I hope it didn't ruin the verse for anyone. If it did, pretend you never read it!)

I'm also ridiculously late on replies back to people, so if we (I) suddenly cut off in the middle of a conversation, I'm sorry! I've had some real-life stuff to take care of that's not quite done just yet. I'll get to them as soon as I can.


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